


all that's best of dark and bright

by scrapbullet



Category: Body of Lies (2008)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-10-23
Updated: 2010-10-23
Packaged: 2017-10-12 20:14:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/128616
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scrapbullet/pseuds/scrapbullet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i> His name is Hani Salaam and, above all, he is a mystery</i>. Wherein Hani is a vampire and Roger is his unsuspecting victim. Warning for violence, just to be safe.</p>
            </blockquote>





	all that's best of dark and bright

Picture the scene –

It's dark, and rainclouds hand heavy and bloated, fit to burst at any moment. Thunder claps violently and lightning shudders through the air, knifing through the trees and hilltops and illuminating them with a bright and vivid light, if only for a moment. If one were to stop, pause, they would taste the acrid flavour of ozone on their tongue.

A castle, made of cobbled stone with four even turrets sits on the very top of one such hill, and it is lonesome; lonesome and ominous. It is a great monster of a thing, too tall and too square in its imposing shape and bearing none of the usual trappings that might indicate the stature of whoever dwells within.

In short it is a blank canvas, but all the more beautiful for its simplicity.

There is a single light that flickers in a window in the eastern tower, flickers with a dim flame briefly, before it's snuffed out to darkness.

There aren't many who dare approach the castle – in the quaint little village that rests in the green, flourishing valley below there are people that point and whisper and gossip incessantly about the man that lives there, alone and with no young wife or child to bring him happiness.

He is a gentleman, they say, but undoubtedly a recluse.

When he comes into the village, which is seldom and only at night when the sun has set well below the horizon, curious eyes follow wherever his feet take him. He walks like a man who knows what he wants and how to get it; his stature tall and regal, his back straight and his shoulders broad. When he looks at you, one elderly woman with the brightest blue eyes says in a comical whisper, it's as if he's looking straight into your very soul.

With a chiselled jaw and fine good looks the young women swoon and the young men mutter, utterly conspicuous in their jealousy.

His name is Hani Salaam, and his hands are long and slender, his face exotic.

His name is Hani Salaam, and he lives in the castle on top of the hill.

His name is Hani Salaam and, above all, he is a _mystery_.

-

The tea is hot and sweet, scalding Roger Ferris' tongue as he sips it with a feigned regality he doesn't feel. The rain, torrential and sweeping through the valley like a vicious act of God, has soaked him through to the bone; his short walk from Johann's farm to the warm comfort of home having been derailed when the heavens opened. By chance the nearest shelter, and with only a short detour through a muddy field, was Hani Salaam's castle, and Roger is all too aware that his very admittance into the man's humble abode speaks of so much more than mere hospitality.

Indeed, his host hadn't stopped there. A towel and a change of clothes had been offered as soon as the great wooden door had opened, Roger ushered inside before he could even think to sneeze let alone catch a cold.

The villagers, kindly as they are, painted Mr Salaam as something of a mysterious stranger, and a dangerous one at that. It makes sense; the man that sits before him now is as controlled and detached as any serial murderer, though there is a warmth to his eyes that settles Roger's quaking nerves.

Yes, it is all too apparent that Hani is a man not to be trifled with.

"I hope the tea is to your liking," he says, and he looks at Roger with an intensity that makes him squirm, makes his guts sit heavy in his abdomen. The women of the village, nothing more than rosy-cheeked lasses who wear their age well, had told him extensively of how the man in the castle is a most attractive man indeed, and they'd peered at him as if they knew his deep dark secret.

Roger's no fool, he's all too aware of the astuteness of the female gender.

Clearing his throat Roger warms his frigid hands on hot china, heat leeching through to begin to banish the cold that's settled down deep. "The tea's fine, I can't thank you enough for your hospitality-"

"Think nothing of it," Hani interrupts. His own teacup sits untouched, steam rising steadily upward. Steepling his fingers he leans forward, appraises Roger with a critical eye before his lips curl up into a beguiling smile, as if amused by his awkward guest. "Think nothing of it at all, my dear, though I must warn you in future; the rain comes often and plentiful in these parts... you will be in need of an umbrella should you wish to venture forth in the middle of the night."

Roger covers his embarrassment by sipping at his tea, face pulled down into a faint scowl as blood suffuses his cheeks.

Hani pauses, the smile frozen on his lips.

Their eyes meet, and for a moment Roger can't breathe, can't possibly suck in enough oxygen to continue to live. In those dark eyes there is something so completely _mesmerising_ , so alluring, so attractive, that he can't look away.

The world twists, turns on its head-

Hani blinks, smiles and settles back into his chair.

Roger stares, his heart beating a mile in a minute.

"Perhaps it would be best if you stayed the night, Mr Ferris. I hear that the storm will not pass until the early hours of the morning," Hani adds, and Roger exhales unsteadily, baffled, scrambling to gain back dominant ground, "there is a guest room in the west wing that should serve you well, with its own en-suite." Hani stands, inclines his head just as a gentleman should. "Marwan will show you the way."

Roger makes an alarmed sound, thrown for a loop. One minute his world had stood, perfectly normal and perfectly mundane and the next... that connection... it couldn't have been his imagination.

Could it?

"But-"

"I bid you good rest."

-

It feels like a dream.

The sheets beneath his naked body are inconsequential to the body above his; warm and tan and nude as Hani nuzzles his face into the length of Roger's throat and practically _purrs_ , kissing and sucking into flesh that reddens from broken blood vessels and burns with a desire so strong that it's as subtle as a sucker punch.

Roger gasps and Hani murmurs, soft and soothing as long calloused fingers trace the length of his torso, thumbing nipples that peak and ache. Pleasure is a hazy thing indeed, faint and muted but no less delicious as he arches into hands that know which string to pluck to play the finest instrument.

Hani's hands dip lower, strokes Roger's hard cock until he's a writhing mess of senseless lust. Pleads bleed into moans and yet Hani does not acknowledge them, cannot, eyes dark and unfathomable. He looks at Roger as a starving man would look at a meal, pressing the pad of his thumb against the swollen head and Roger moans, comes apart at the seams with the barest touch.

The dream swells, becomes hot and heady. Roger can taste Taif rose on his tongue; oddly bitter.

"Does it feel good, Mr Ferris?" Hani's voice is like syrup to the senses and Roger shudders, his release cooling rapidly on his belly. Hani kisses his throat, lingers there as Roger's chest heaves, eyes glazed and lost in the afterglow of hedonistic satisfaction.

There is a brief pain, like the swift, sharp sting of a wasp, and then nothing.

-

Breakfast at the castle is a silent affair. Roger has only himself for company, face tired and drawn as he picks at toast slathered with warm honey. For some strange reason, of something he can't recall, his body feels as heavy as if it were weighted with lead.

It feels as if he hasn't slept at all.

When he is finished, Marwan clears his plate.

"My Lord apologises for his absence," and Roger realises that this is the first time he's heard the mysterious man speak, "and bids you good day. He wishes to invite you for a drink on the eve of Sunday."

"Yes, yes of course," Roger says, smiles though it feels too tight on his skin. Hell, his entire body scalds and itches, as if his bones want to shed the mortal flesh and fly free.

Palming his neck he winces, and doesn't notice when his hand comes away tinged with red.

"Tell Hani I'll be there."

-

The sun is hot on his face and there is a solid body at his back, broad and full of strength. They sit in Farmer Johann's field, sprawled out on a tartan blanket with a feast laid out before them, sweet cakes and fanciful cucumber sandwiches untouched.

Hani combs his fingers through Roger's hair, touches his lips to his cheek. "My dear Mr Ferris... have you fallen in love with me?"

Roger scowls, swats at his lover's wandering hands good-naturedly-

When he wakes, he's smiling.

-

"Fancy seeing you here, Mr Ferris!" Mrs. Marjoram waves to him, her basket of baked goods swinging in her hands. If she's not careful she'll lose them, drop every single currant bun onto the cobbled road, but she is rosy cheeked and cares none.

If she drops them she'll just bake more. "I was just about to pop over! Have a spot of tea, perhaps? Or a currant bun?"

"Mrs. Marjoram-"

"-Please, call me Betty!"

Roger sighs, palms the back of his neck. Though he'd slept long and deep the night before it feels as if he hasn't slept at all, and no amount of coffee has proven strong enough to wake him up this cold, dreary morning. "Betty, it was... lovely... to see you again, but I really do have to get going-"

"-Nonsense, there's always time for tea-"

The growl that issues from Roger's throat is neither human nor impressed. Indeed, it is low and deep and primal and the world narrows to a single point, fixated on the paper-thin flesh of the neck that protects the stuttering artery beneath. What would it taste like, Roger wonders? What does blood taste like, blood not your own, blood that is thick and fragrant and spilling from a body still trembling, still gasping for air.

He see's red, reaches out to bite and snarl and _tear_ -

Betty gasps, her basket tipping as she falls.

-stops himself, heart thudding in his chest.

"Oh dear," she says, dusting off her apron with a frown. "It's really rather slippery this morning, wouldn't you agree Roger?"

Roger smiles tightly, helps her up. The bones in her hand are thin and bird-like, the veins blue and fragile. He feels as if he squeezes too tight she'll shatter, all too similar to delicate porcelain.

Betty Marjoram continues on, chattering away without a care in the world. She doesn't seem to realise that her dear neighbour had been staring at her throat, wondering what it'd be like to sink his teeth in and suck out her blood. Clutching his hand she drags him back into her quaint little cottage, rather than pop into his as she'd initially intended, interrogating him all the way.

Roger inhales, exhales. Breathes.

No matter how many buns he has with his cup of tea, he's still hungry.

So hungry.

-

A wolf, in all its terrible majesty, tears into its prey savagely. Flesh is torn and rendered, the animal twitching still in the ugly throes of death.

Blood paints the ground they stand on; a symbol, a symbol Roger doesn't recognise.

"Do you see?" Hani says, and his palms are heavy on Roger's shoulders, "this is nature; the hunt, the kill. The feed."

Roger does see.

-

What alerts Roger to the truth has, funnily enough, nothing to do with the strange dreams, or even his fixation of Betty Marjoram's throat.

It's the simplest little thing.

A steak.

Just a steak. A Friday evening meal in the local inn has become a tradition of sorts, and though at times the company can be somewhat rowdy they leave him well alone if he makes it abundantly clear.

Which, tonight, he does.

It's a nice meal, always is. Farmer Johann runs the inn as well as the local farm, providing most of the village with butter, milk and eggs in the tiny little shop across the way. It's his newly slaughtered cow that Roger is eating with renewed hunger, thankful that his strange appetite has since passed.

It isn't until he's halfway through that he realises he'd ordered it rare.

And that he'd been mopping up the excess blood as he went along.

Well, damn.

-

The next time Roger dreams, he's exhausted. His bedroom, in hues of brown and blue, melts away and wallows in crimson, blood dripping from his fingers as he sprawls wanton on sheets made of the finest spun silk.

There is a corpse, Aisha, her chest split wide open and her eyes staring glassily at nothing at all, nothing at all, and Hani roots around in the prison of her ribcage, concentration etched onto his handsome face. When he finds the heart, still warm and glistening, he plucks it free with a sickening pop and offers it to Roger, his fingers slick with gore.

 _"She walks in beauty, like the night of cloudless climes and starry skies; and all that's best of dark and bright meet in her aspect and her eyes."_ *

-

He's finally gone mad; lost it.

He'd thought that it all made sense; Hani, the dreams. That the man he's enamoured with has bewitched him, that he's only cursed instead of slowly going insane.

Then he realises how ridiculous that sounds.

Roger finds his eyes wandering to the neck more than often, and when he sleeps he _dreams_ such terrible things. Wonderful, terrible things and Hani is there, always, with his hands guiding and his lips hot and perfect on Roger's neck.

These dreams, these nightmares, are so real, so arousing, that he can't tell what is reality and what isn't.

He can't stop.

Maybe he doesn't want to.

...He's so tired.

-

Sunday, and the castle is lit with the golden hue of candlelight.

Roger is exhausted, tucked close to the roaring, open fire as if trying to leech its warmth, soak it up into his bones. The fact that he's come full circle from that night half a week ago isn't lost on him.

Hani is just as beautiful as he remembers.

"You look tired," long fingers grasp Rogers chin, tilt his head this way and that. Hani appraises him once more, looks in deep and picks him apart and Roger is nothing more than an open book. Those fathomless eyes see all, know all, have invaded his dreams and his mind and his thoughts until the very idea of this second meeting had his heart bombing loudly in his chest.

Anticipation.

It tastes bitter.

But he knows, does Roger. The dreams, the hunger, the desire to rip flesh from bone.

The bite on his throat, neat and clean. The fact that he constantly picks at it to make it bleed, a sluggish trail of red sliding down his neck to pool in his clavicle.

Oddly enough, Roger doesn't mind the physical pain. It's the heartache that really does it; makes him want to sink his fingernails into his bare chest and hollow himself out. Makes him want to reach inside and massage some life back into the meaty organ, as if it could possibly remove this unhealthy obsession with a gorgeous, wonderful _horrifying_ man that looks at him now with blatant amusement in his eyes.

It doesn't take a genius to figure it out.

 _Vampire._

"What have you done to me?" His hands shake uncontrollably, his body burning with a desire so strong that he thinks he doesn't have the strength to fight it. "What have you done!"

Hani is calm and when he smiles his fangs have dropped; long and sharp and deadly. "My dear... I have given you a gift; a kingly gift. Do you not appreciate it?"

"Appreciate- What the hell is going on!"

"I must admit, I did not realise you would be so very _human_ ," Hani hums, ignoring his words completely. He draws Roger in close, in an intimate embrace. "You know what I am, my dear, what I need to do to survive and you... you were to be nothing more than a meal." His voice catches on air, deepens to a seductive baritone as he crowds Roger and drags his lips over the tantalising slope of his throat.

Roger swallows thickly, his face drawn down in an expression of intense thought, unwillingly entranced. He'd come here to confront the incubus of his nightmares, but he has fallen prey once again to a creature with such _charm_. "What changed?"

Hani laughs softly, amused.

"What changed? You, Roger, _you_. I did not anticipate your... naiveté, your sexuality." Lips part and a slick wet tongue dampens them, and Roger inhales sharply, unable to tear his eyes away from the sight. "Yes," Hani continues, "you are a most attractive man, and you know it well. Your screams brought me great pleasure."

Words... words are a profound thing. They twist and manipulate and mesmerise, and Roger finds himself falling all over again, headfirst into the terrible abyss. Those dark eyes find his, lock him in a gilded cage he, deep down, doesn't want to escape. Words give Roger pause, make him _think_.

Hani is a master of speech, each syllable clear and pronounced with an exotic lilt.

Roger buckles under the pressure, loses his tenuous grasp on reality.

A smile, and Hani kisses him. Fangs bite into the plush flesh of his lower lip and it is a beginning and an end. Lips and teeth and tongues collide in a bloody battle that Roger loses with every second, every sigh, and beneath it all blood is the taste of copper and cranberries; sharp and bitter and sensual.

The knowledge that he has been seduced is as clear as glass.

It's a shame he doesn't give a damn enough to fight it.

Not anymore.

-

It was a happy day when Roger Ferris moved out of his tiny cottage and into the great expanse of Hani Salaam's castle. His neighbours gossiped, pointed and whispered in dulcet tones as they spoke of a secret romance and that they, in their infinite wisdom, always knew they'd end up together.

A star-crossed romance! they'd said. Like something out of a fairy tale!

If only they knew.


End file.
